Dolly Parton 1946-2026

In the heat of Sunday afternoon I happened to find myself at a country music festival by the Thames, listening to Definitely Dolly — a Dolly Parton impersonator and her four-piece band. When I told an American neighbour where I was going, she predicted that there would be “heartbreak — and trucks.” She was wrong about that. Instead there were hats and boots. And beer. And a lot of people having a good time listening to decent renderings of immortal songs like “I Will Always Love You”, “Jolene” and “Coat of Many Colors”, while laughing at stage patter based on Parton’s much loved jokes about her hair, her body and her clothes, delivered in a passable imitation of that bright East Tennessee drawl.

Definitely Dolly lost me when she inserted “We Are the Champions” into the repertoire, but she won me back near the end when she shattered the fourth wall by suddenly announcing, in a broad Scouse accent, that she was actually Dani Graham from Liverpool, before reverting to a Dollyness which had led her, during the course of an hour-long show, through at least four costume changes.

I didn’t think much of country music until Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces came out in 1970, with its brilliant use of Tammy Wynette’s records in the soundtrack. Then I went to Nashville, and it all made complete sense. It’s still not something I listen to often, but I wouldn’t want to be without Kathy Mattea’s “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses”, Martina McBride’s “Independence Day”, Charlie Rich’s “A Woman Left Lonely” or Billie Jo Spears’ “’57 Chevrolet”, or everything by the Stanley Brothers.

Or those songs of Dolly’s, of course. The obituaries are saying what an extraordinary person she was, inspired by her tough background to live her life with the sort of generosity that is being officially discouraged in her native USA. “I love the poorly educated,” said Trump. “Give them books,” said Dolly, the child of a father who never learnt to read, and then she did something about it. I hope Dani Graham and others like her keep singing her songs for many years to come.